Thanks Jean. After doing a bit of a fork search here, i realise you did some extensive research on the Epicon, so cheers for the recommendation.

Well I did research the bejezus out of it and it kept coming up as a capable and good value for money fork, but any recommendation would be accompanied by the proviso that I've yet to actually ride on it! I'm looking forward to trying it and I'm hopeful I've chosen something I like, but how I actually find it is anyone's guess. The joy/peril of putting a bike together this way.

I bought straight from the UK. Shipping was a little steep compared to when I've bought a frame from Ribble in the past, but it was handled by a good carrier and fully trackable. There is an Australian reseller but they have a very limited range - I don't think they even had the 29er frames.

Jean wrote:I bought straight from the UK. Shipping was a little steep compared to when I've bought a frame from Ribble in the past, but it was handled by a good carrier and fully trackable. There is an Australian reseller but they have a very limited range - I don't think they even had the 29er frames.

I'm keen to go down the UST route and as I'm not inclined to factory wheels sets (too silly expensive and too few spokes generally), the rim options are rather limiting colour wise. At the moment I'm heading towards WTB i19 or maybe i23 Frequency rims, which are fully UST approved; but they are unavoidably black (with big white and red stickers) when I was hoping for something in white. Spank EVOs are another option that do come in various colours, but they are more expensive and I'm wary of new fangled rim makers, especially ones who call their company 'Spank' (I'm obviously the wrong demographic)!

The Mavic XM819 is a UST tubeless rim. These blokes in the UK can build you a wheelset with them on their sealed bearing hubs for under 225 quid. Still have the 'problem' of balck rims but you can have white spokes and hubs.

Unless I've missed something in the rather bewildering world of MTB tubeless compatibility, these don't play well with UST tyres. They were my original selections, but I discarded them when I opted to go down the low faff (but more costly, tyres wise) UST path.

silentbutdeadly wrote:The Mavic XM819 is a UST tubeless rim. These blokes in the UK can build you a wheelset with them on their sealed bearing hubs for under 225 quid. Still have the 'problem' of balck rims but you can have white spokes and hubs.

Here's a hot tip for you. When measuring and fitting things to one's new frame, do so at a time when there is no time pressure and when one's small children are not involved. Otherwise one might, as I did on the weekend, insert one's new seatpost to an incorrect measurement, have it bump against the top water bottle mount and then decide to cut said post on the basis that it is too long.

Before you say it - yes I measured more than once before cutting (but it was by referring to the incorrect measurement on my meticulously kept key sizing cheat sheet). Reflection at a quieter time of the day made it clear I had stuffed up. I have cut too much off and the post is useless to me. There is, unfortunately, no emoticon for '#$(AT)%ing idjeet'.

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